CARTLEDGE J J

STATE OF TASMANIA v JARROD JAMES CARTLEDGE                        2 JUNE 2021

COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE                                                            BLOW CJ

 This is an application for the cancellation of the treatment and supervision part of a drug treatment order that I made on 30 January 2020.  On that occasion I dealt with Mr Cartledge in relation to a number of offences, including dangerous driving and evading police.  I imposed a backdated sentence of 10 weeks’ imprisonment on the charge of evading police. That sentence expired about 10 days before I sentenced on the other matters. On the other matters, including dangerous driving, I made a drug treatment order and said that if I had not made one, I would have sentenced Mr Cartledge to 20 months’ imprisonment cumulatively with the 10 weeks.

He performed well for quite a while in relation to the drug treatment order, and after some months he performed intermittently, but in the end he did not manage to stay the distance.  I am satisfied, in the words of the Sentencing Act 1997, that the continuation of the treatment and supervision part of the order is unlikely to achieve the purposes for which the order was made.

Since the making of the order, Mr Cartledge has served a number of sanction days.  There is an argument about whether the total number of sanction days that he served is 38 or 40.  I do not think it makes much difference. There are also a number of days that I need to take into account for the purpose of backdating the time that he will have to spend in custody. I propose to activate only a part of the remaining part of the sentence.  It is open to me to activate 20 months, minus 38 or 40 days.  That is, it is open to me to activate 18 months and bit. But in recognition of the efforts that Mr Cartledge has made to overcome his drug problem since the sentencing in January of last year, and in recognition of the time that he spent in residential rehabilitation, I think the most appropriate course is for me to activate 14 months, not 18 and a bit, and to backdate it and impose the shortest possible non-parole period so that he will have the maximum opportunity to rehabilitate himself with the help of a parole officer.

My orders are as follows:

1          The treatment and supervision part of the drug treatment order made on 30 January 2020 is cancelled.

2          I activate 14 months of the custodial part of that drug treatment order, backdated to commence on 14 February 2021.

3          I order that Mr Cartledge is not to be eligible for parole until he has served 7 months of those 14 months.

That means that he will be eligible for parole in mid-September, that is, in about 3½ months’ time.  If he gets parole as soon as he is eligible, then he will have 7 months during which he will have the assistance and supervision of a parole officer.